# Bix **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 21, 2005, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bix/318000 "2005-08-21T17:20:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bix/318000/1 "2005-08-21T17:20:33Z")
I am reading a [terrific new bio](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0826416993/qid=1124644985/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-9397782-9181746?v=glance&s=books) of Bix Beiderbecke, one of my Dead Boyfriends\*. Really well-written, well-illustrated, and not over the head of someone who’s not a musicologist. I adore Bix–I have two collections on cassette, and a number of 78s (mostly with Paul Whiteman or Jean Goldkette). Even before I’d heard his name, I’d stop short at the cornet solos and think, “Jesus, who _is_ that guy?” Any other Bix fans? - _My friend Donna and I have a list of Dead Boyfriends. So what if they’re gay or alcoholic or drug addicts? They’re dead, so it doesn’t matter!_ ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bix/318000/2 "2005-08-21T22:56:30Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > Any other Bix fans? Check out my location ===\> I’m about a mile or so away from his grave 😉 We have a jazz [festival](http://www.bixsociety.org/) here every July…and a rather popular (20,000 or so runners) [road race](http://www.bix7.com/). ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bix/318000/3 "2005-08-21T23:07:55Z")
I used to have a small, much-played collection of Bix Beiderbecke 78rpm records. An ex-lover broke them into little chunks because he thought I was cheating on him (which I wasn’t). The depths to which some people will stoop in order to hurt other people’s feelings is fathomless. I expect that there is a special tier of hell for those who destroy Bix Beiderbecke records. Dante never wrote of such a thing, but surely it exists. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bix/318000/4 "2005-08-21T23:14:10Z")
Bix helped get me started on a life’s love of jazz when I was, I dunno, 13 or so. In particular, his compadres Rollini and Trumbauer led me to take up the bass and C melody saxophones. As an Iowan, I was of course aware of him through the Bix Festival. I later found out that my grandfather had briefly known Bix when he passed through the University of Iowa in 1925. Like Bix a trumpet player, **Grampa Doug** even played across a dance hall from Bix in a battle-of-the-bands that year. Bix didn’t care for college (he was there mostly to make up incompletes from high school and take music courses) and he soon dropped out. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bix/318000/5 "2005-08-21T23:33:04Z")
Amazing how much really good music he put out in such a short life. I wonder how his sound would have evolved had he survived his life for just a little while longer. [Some recordings are available on CD.](http://www.jazzbymail.com/albums_rw/rwbix.html) BTW, this thread is going to be hard to search for later. Partly because I can never remember how to spell his last name. So it’s: “Yeah, that **Eve** thread about Bix…” 😛 ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2005, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bix/318000/6 "2005-08-21T23:37:27Z")
When I was a kid, I loved listening to my dad’s Bix records. I thought his name was “Big Spiderback.” ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bix/318000/7 "2005-08-22T00:32:30Z")
> [@beagledave](#): > > Check out my location ===\> > > I’m about a mile or so away from his grave 😉 > > We have a jazz [festival](http://www.bixsociety.org/) here every July…and a rather popular (20,000 or so runners) [road race](http://www.bix7.com/). A Bix Beiderbecke road race? How can they _fit_ 20,000 runners into a bar? ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bix/318000/8 "2005-08-22T03:31:24Z")
Easy. 10,000 in the front room and 10,000 in the back. 🆒 No, whose idea was it to have a _footrace_ commemorating this guy who never ran or worked out (though one source says he was a fine natural baseball player\*)? \*The baseball anecdote comes from a strange memoir called _Remembering Bix_ by Ralph Berton, whose brother Vic, a famous drummer, worked with Bix in Chicago in the mid 20s. Among other things, Ralph wrote that his _other_ brother, Gene, claimed to have seduced Bix. ---
**Author:** ![Fortean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/96bed5/32.png) [@Fortean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fortean)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bix/318000/9 "2005-08-22T11:54:51Z")
Eve, you might like the UK comedy drama The Beiderbecke Affair ([http://tinyurl.com/8kujt](http://tinyurl.com/8kujt)) and its follow ups, The Beiderbecke Tapes and The Beiderbecke Connection - a really odd, quirky, funny series from the 80s about a teacher who is obsessed with Bix and does a bit of sleuthing on the sly. The soundtrack, full of guess-who, is a lot of fun. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bix/318000/10 "2005-08-22T16:45:56Z")
I like The Guess Who as much as the next guy, but shouldn’t the soundtrack be _Bix_? :rolleyes: I also recommend _Bix: Man & Legend_ (if you can still find it), by Richard Sudhalter, a trumpeter-journalist. He and a team of co-researchers started to piece together Bix’s world in the early '60s, speaking to friends and associates now long gone, and Sudhalter wrote up the whole in an unusual, effective docudrama style, mixing “scripted” dialogue with interview quotes. There’s also a veritable assload of great old pictures, a timeline, and a full-geek discography of every record Bix made, plus a few people only _think_ he made. ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bix/318000/11 "2005-08-22T17:06:42Z")
> [@pinkfreud](#): > > When I was a kid, I loved listening to my dad’s Bix records. I thought his name was “Big Spiderback.” And of course, that would be a great name for a jump-jive band that did covers of Bix’s songs. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bix/318000/12 "2005-08-22T17:47:28Z")
Oh, when I first saw this I thought we were going to discuss my favorite [paint stripper.](http://www.bixmfg.com/Stripper%20TDS.htm)\* Haj \*yes, this is supposed to be ironic ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2005, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bix/318000/13 "2005-08-23T07:44:23Z")
Bix is one of my favorites. I especially love the work he did with Trumbauer. **I’m Coming, Virginia** is one of my favorite jazz records by any artist. Bix didn’t sound like the other big-name trumpeters of his day. He had a bell-like tone, and he had a plaintive sound without being very bluesy. He was an admirer of the impressionist composers (like Debussy), and it showed up in some of his music (like In a Mist, the only piano record he made). Too bad he killed himself with booze. Bix was an alcoholic at a bad time for alcoholics. Bathtub gin could be toxic, and he drank a lot of the stuff.